Finding Answers
by cheesysmallfry
Summary: Harry ponders the question of fidelity, the meaning of being human, and the makings of a man as he traces the life of the one person who caused everything, but should mean nothing: Wormtail. This is my first fanfic. DESPERATE FOR ADVICE!


**A/N:** Hi! This is my very first fanfiction, so I'm expecting a lot of advice from more experienced writers. What should I improve? Is this ok? Basically this story is about Harry, after the war, searching for answers. He's not going to get them. But maybe some things were better left unanswered.

**Summary**: Harry ponders the question of fidelity, the meaning of being human, and the makings of a man as he traces the life of the one person who caused everything, but should mean nothing: Wormtail.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. All credit goes to J.K. Rowling, the best author that ever lived!

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><p>He doesn't look like he's from the Prophet, Carolina Pettigrew thought as she studied the boy before her.<p>

The autumn sun gleamed off the boy's dark, ebony locks. Beneath bright, piercing green eyes, a shy and somewhat forced smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Round, worn glasses slipped down his nose and he hastily moved to push them up again. Where had she seen him before? Carolina shook her head. Her memory was failing her once again.

"You're here to ask about my son, I suppose?"

A brief moment of hesitation. Then a nod. Carolina sniffed disdainfully before moving aside.

"Come in then." The boy warily stepped into the cottage, and Carolina shut the rotting oak door behind her. Turning, she watched him look about her living room, eyeing the one chair that sat at the center of the floor. He stared at it thoughtfully. Carolina hurriedly explained herself.

"I don't usually have visitors. You're going to have to conjure one up yourself."

The boy frowned, and Carolina wondered if she had even been heard.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked. A soft "Yes, please" was heard and the aged woman limped her way to the kitchen, eager to escape the awkward silence. The boy watched her leave.

Where was the tea? Where was the sugar? Where was her memory? Carolina searched the interior of her kitchen, trying to conjure up information now lost to her due to years of being alone. If she closed her eyes, she could still recall her darling Jonathan. Her rotund Peter.

Peter. Peter. Peter.

NO.

She left the kitchen in quick haste with an empty cup to find the man peering closely at the Pettigrew family portrait. His eyes especially roved over her young son's face. Peter grinned at him, blonde locks falling across his innocent eyes as he laughed heartily. She coughed nastily, and he jumped and turned to her sheepishly. She handed him the cup, and settled herself comfortably into the second chair the man had conjured. What a gentleman. The boy stared at the empty cup in confusion. Carolina sighed.

"Water's out," she explained. "Use a water spell or what-not."

Understanding flashed across his young face and he whipped out his wand and muttered a soft "Aguamenti." Water poured out of the magical instrument, and the boy looked up to see Carolina watching with wistful, nostalgic eyes.

"You're not a wizard."

"No. His father was."

"Ah."

Silence. Carolina studied the beams of sunshine piercing the glass of her window pane. The number of times Peter had stared out of it, dreaming of Hogwarts, dreaming of…

Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter.

NO.

"He looks like his father." The boy's voice broke Carolina out of her haze, and she blinked at him wearily. He was referring to the man in the portrait whose hand clasped Peter's shoulder firmly, grinning as he wrapped his arm lovingly around his wife. The woman turned to him and smacked him lightly on the arm. The family laughed. Carolina looked away.

"Yes," she said curtly. "He did." She bit her bottom lip, and the boy watched her actions carefully. Then:

"That's ok. People say I look like my father, too."

It was an honest answer, a hesitant one. Carolina looked up at the boy and their eyes locked. She could trust him. He would listen.

"He was a sweet boy," she began, "Too young to handle his father's death. Shy. Bashful. He couldn't utter a complete sentence. It was an outright shock that he got into Gryffindor, but he proved us all wrong didn't he?"

The boy fixed her with a blank stare and didn't reply.

"He was never a smart boy, but that never stopped him from writing to me everyday to see how I was doing. Every year he would bound off that train and run straight into my arms. And I remember standing there holding him. Just holding him close. And I thought, Stay with me. Stay with me. Because I couldn't afford to lose anyone else…"

Carolina straightened in her chair and closed her eyes.

"After that night… I couldn't handle it anymore. I locked myself in my own home. I didn't talk to anyone, I didn't do anything. Peter and his father… They were my life… They are my life. And… And…"

Carolina let the memories flow. Peter getting stuck in the rosebush. Jonothan crooning to a soft, innocent infant. Jonathan's death. Peter at Hogwarts. Peter with his friends. The very Minister of Magic standing before her with a decorated box of Peter's finger, his final act of fidelity. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter.

_Oh, son. Why did you leave me?_

She opened her eyes to find that her vision had blurred, and the boy was still before her, listening to her every word. He reached out to touch her, but she slapped his hand away. No one should see her like this. She was the mother of a hero! No one should see her like this. The boy pulled his hand away. He understood.

"You should go," she choked between her sobs, and the boy nodded. Carolina heard his cup set down, his footsteps hurrying to the door, the turning of the knob, and then…

She heard him stop. Silence followed as if he were struggling with himself. Then:

"He doesn't look like he would have done what he did."

She didn't answer him. Instead, she raised her eyes to see him once again observing the portrait of her Peter. Her darling Peter. The boy's eyes moved to meet hers. He hesitated with himself once more before saying,

"He was a good man, Mrs. Pettigrew. Be proud of him."

And then he was gone.

Carolina didn't move. She pondered the boys words replaying over and over in her head again. _Be proud of him. Be proud of him. Be proud of him._ That's right. Peter had left her for a good cause. Don't hate him for leaving. Be proud of him. He's your son.

_He's my son._

Carolina looked up at her Peter, grinning so wide, laughing so freely. She closed her eyes and tried to keep the image plastered in her head. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter.

She smiled. And then she was gone.

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><p>Harry James Potter apparated himself to the Burrow, exhausted. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. It had been a long day. He forced his feet to trudge his sore frame to the front door. He grasped the knob, turned, and opened it.<p>

All conversation in the room stopped. Then, "Harry, mate!" and "Oi, Harry!" and "Come and sit, Harry" filled his ears as he was ushered to an empty seat at the table. A bowl of onion soup was immediately place in front of him by Molly Weasley. No one was left unseated at the Weasley house. He smiled, he laughed, and he teased his friends, his _family_ naturally and calmly. He was at peace.

Then, Ginny, the love of his life, took his hand and grasped it meaningfully. He turned to her.

"Where were you?" she asked, lovingly. But Harry knew she had some idea to where he had been. That was how she was. He turned back to his onion soup and slurped it loudly before answering:

"Pettigrew's house. I talked with his mother."

Silence. Then, enormous eruption.

"WHAT!"

"Pettigrew? Wormtail? The RAT?"

"That BITCH."

"GEORGE!"

"What, Mum. It's true…"

Finally Ron's booming voice broke over the others:

"What did you do, Harry? Did you tell her the truth? Did you give her what she deserved?"

Harry swallowed his soup and thought. He thought of the Marauders and his mother. He thought of the trust his parents gave to Peter Pettigrew. He thought of how he had brutally repaid their kindness. He pondered the question of fidelity, the meaning of being human, and the makings of a man. He thought of Lily Evans Potter who threw herself in front of her one year old boy in a desperate attempt to spare him. He thought of Carolina Pettigrew, who suffered for years due to the loss of her son, oblivious to his deceit and betrayal.

His thought of how powerful a mother's love for her child could be.

"No," Harry stated as he stirred the contents of his bowl thoughtfully. "I didn't give her the truth. I gave her what she needed."

With that, Harry stood up, excused himself, and stepped outside to admire the stars. He wondered if maybe, just maybe, he could catch a bundle in his hands and release them again like fireflies in a glass jar. He thought of love.

Then, without thinking, Harry closed his eyes and whispered to silent, twinkling sky:

"I love you, Mum."


End file.
